Michigan’s unemployed have a new online resource that looks at their personalities as well as their job skills.
A tool long used in evaluating white-collar workers is now being used for people who worked in manufacturing.
Tim Slaper is with the Indiana Business Research Center, which is part of Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business.
The school developed a Web site to help displaced workers look at new options. It includes a personality profile to find out if they like working with other people or prefer solitary jobs, and how they handle conflict.
"This would help a displaced worker kind of plot the options, and figure out what path makes the most sense for them, knowing that a lot of those auto manufacturing jobs, they’re not going to come back," Slaper says.
The free Web site has tools to show how much preparation, education or training is needed for specifics jobs. Slaper says it also shows where the jobs are.
Slaper says Michigan, Indiana and Ohio lost 57 thousand assembly jobs during the recent recession. He says people looking for assembly jobs should keep an eye on the growing plastics and rubber industries in the tri-state area.
For more information, visit drivingworkforcechange.org.
